Notes

1. Aha! moment -- 43 Emacsen -- feel free to steal this idea! =)

Feel free to Make This Happen, or get in touch with me if you want to
hack on this with a Ruby/Rails newbie. =)

You know how geeks do _really_ crazy things with their favorite
applications? Like the way I practically live in Emacs? And the way
some people practically live in Microsoft Excel? We use applications
for _far_ more than they were originally imagined to do.

So let's help people think out of the box. Let's show them what geeks
push their applications to do.

What would be ultracool?

Think of the way 43things lets you say
you've either done something or you plan to do something. Add a
software context and support screenshots. For example, you could add
"Do mail" to your list of things, set "Emacs" as your software, and
post a screenshot (optional) of Gnus (or even Rmail). Tick a little
checkbox if you don't mind if people to ask you for help, and add a
short note about your experience if you want... Oooh, and throw
tagging in there somewhere.

Why is this ubercool?

- You see what other people do with a certain application. (And you

will begin to appreciate the insane flexibility of the Emacs text
editor!)

- You see how other people do something, and maybe even how popular

something is.

- You see what friends and similar people use. =)

I want this. I think it would totally rock. I'm crazier about it than
the Eclipse snippets project my research supervisor wants me to
consider. I think we might get all sorts of useful data about geek
program usage, if we can get people to do this. For example, I'd
_love_ to find out what other crazy geek things people who have
similar usage patterns for Emacs might be doing, or what other
applications they're crazy about... For example, I'm crazy about
Mozilla Firefox--but I know people out there are doing even cooler
things with it!

Steal this idea. Run with it. Make it happen. If I can use it for free
and I can copy my data easily, I'll be one of your first users and evangelists! =)

Tracing the thoughtpath for fun: how did I get to thinking about that?

Well, I was thinking about Google and how I want to be an evangelist
more than I want to be an engineer.

Then I thought about evangelism and what I usually get excited about.

Which naturally made me think about Emacs.

So I thought about all the crazy stuff you can do with Emacs.

And then I thought about Danny O' Brien's lifehacks talk and how
power users do crazy things with applications.

2. Rosa Parks and software freedom

Apartheid. Making people second-class citizens by law. Terrible
practice. I'm glad that Rosa Parks stood up (or sat down) for herself
when she did, and I join the world in celebrating her life today.

What a fine and wonderful world we live in now, particularly in the
egalitarian wonder of the Internet, where age, race, gender and creed
are invisible...

... and where countless people are also invisible, also unheard.

The digital divide grows ever wider. As companies raise prices, crack
down on copyright violations, and festoon their code with legal
protections, people are left further and further behind.

That's why I care so much about software freedom.

Most people see two parties involved in software piracy. There's them,
and there's the company. The company doesn't generally lose much from
piracy, and may have even factored that into their marketing strategy.
The people who pirate software focus on what _they_ gain: powerful
software available _now._

But I see a whole web of relationships. I see potential alternatives
languishing because people don't bother to try out something else. I
see startups and small businesses struggling with high software costs.
I see schools torn between the reluctance to raise tuition and the
need to prepare their students for the real world.

And I see people being locked out of this world. They are second-class
citizens by law and custom. They don't have dollars for software or
the inclination or ability to modify it.

They do not sit at the back of the bus. They are outside the glass
windows, looking in.

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Page: 2005.10.25

Updated: 2005-10-2811:08:2211:08:22+0800

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